China has experienced enormous changes in land use in recent decades, which are largely driven by its unparalleled economic development. We analyze changes in vegetation and soil carbon storage between 1990 and 2010 resulting from combinations of land-use category conversion and management. Results demonstrate a major decline in grasslands (−6.85%; 20.83 × 10⁶ ha) and large increases in urban areas (+43.73%; 6.87 × 10⁶ ha), farmlands (+0.84%; 1.48 × 10⁶ ha), and forests (+0.67%; 1.52 × 10⁶ ha). The total soil organic carbon pool has been reduced by approximately 11.5 Tg of carbon (TgC) year⁻¹, whereas 13.2 TgC year⁻¹ has accumulated in the biomass carbon pool because of land-use category change. Large carbon losses (approximately 101.8 TgC year⁻¹) have resulted from land management failures, including forest fires and insect pests. Overall land-use change and land management have contributed about 1.45 Pg of carbon to the total carbon released from 1990 to 2010. Our results highlight the importance of improving land-use management, especially in view of the recently proposed expansion of urban areas in China.

Based on vegetation maps of Inner Mongolia, SPOT‐VEGETATION normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data, and temperature and precipitation data from 118 meteorological stations, this study analysed changes in NDVI, temperature and precipitation, and performed correlation analyses of NDVI, temperature and precipitation for eight different vegetation types during the growing seasons (April–October) of the period 1998–2007 in Inner Mongolia, China. We also investigated seasonal correlations and lag‐time effects, and our results indicated that for different vegetation types, NDVI changes during 1998–2007 showed great variation. NDVI correlated quite differently with temperature and precipitation, with obvious seasonal differences. Lag‐time effects also varied among vegetation types and seasons. On the whole, Inner Mongolia is becoming warmer, and drier for most regions, and ecological pressure in Inner Mongolia is increasing, and our focus on such issues is therefore important. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society

Our work is the first study to explore the national and provincial composite carbon storage variations in terrestrial ecosystems of China caused by the entire flows of land use type conversion (LUTC). Only water body was excluded. The results indicated that terrestrial ecosystems of China lost 219 Tg-C due to LUTC from 1980 to 1995 and the amount was 60 Tg-C during the period 1995-2010. Despite the decrease in the total amount, carbon losses from LUTC intensified, but most of the losses were balanced by the opposite conversions. Our analyses also revealed that LUTCs in China were becoming detrimental to carbon reduction, mainly due to the insufficient increase of forest land to meet the growing demand for carbon absorption, the accelerating disappearance of grassland and the rapid expansion of settlements. More than 50% of the carbon storage variations for a single LUTC flow concentrated in several provinces. To improve China’s LUTC status from the aspect of low-carbon, Heilongjiang, Sichuan, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang and coastal regions, such as Shandong, Jiangsu and Liaoning, should be dealt with first according to their conditions. This study can be helpful to planners, policy makers and scholars concerned about carbon reduction in China.